CLAIM: President Joe Biden claimed that “[n]o U.S. boots will be on the ground” to build a port in Gaza for aid.
VERDICT: MOSTLY FALSE. The project would require thousands of U.S. troops, either on the ground or close to shore.
Biden used his State of the Union address Thursday, as Breitbart News reported, to propose that the U.S. military build a new port in Gaza to facilitate the transfer of aid into the area. The Israeli government has repeatedly pointed out that unlimited amounts of aid already enters Gaza; the problem is distribution, especially as Hamas steals much of the aid. And the White House itself admitted in a briefing that trucking aid in is a more efficient and effective approach.
Moreover, Gaza had a port before the war. The Hamas terror group controlled it, and used it to launch maritime assaults in the October 7 attack against Israel. Israel destroyed the port in November in a clash with Hamas terrorists.
Still, the idea of a port is a visual concept that, like aid dropped from airplanes, presents a striking image of assistance.
But there is no way to build a port, or to secure it in a war zone, without the presence of American personnel in the area.
As the New York Times reported on Thursday:
U.S. officials sketched out the plan, which would make the United States more directly involved in delivering aid, hours before President Biden was scheduled to give his State of the Union address on Thursday evening. Details for what they described as a floating pier off Gaza would be included in the speech, the officials said.
…
Briefing reporters, officials said it could take more than 30 to 60 days to implement, and involve hundreds or thousands of U.S. troops on ships just off shore, in keeping with Mr. Biden’s mandate that no American soldiers be on the ground inside Gaza as the conflict rages. The port would be constructed in cooperation with other countries in the region, the officials said.
The idea that there would be no “boots on the ground” if the Navy, not the Army, is involved — if SeaBees are on ships a few hundred yards from shore rather than onshore — is almost laughable.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.